Tobias Slater | Cauldron Bay

Lovers’ Lane, 9:24 p.m.

Slater checks the time on the cracked screen of his phone, the spiderweb of fractures catching the moonlight like veins of frost. 9:24. He scoffs under his breath, a low rasp of amusement that tastes like smoke and sarcasm. “Looks like they’re not coming,” he mutters, though the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth betrays the fact that he cares just a little too much.

He slides the phone back into the pocket of his leather jacket and crosses one boot over the other, leaning against the hood of his car like he owns not just the vehicle, but the whole damn cliffside. His gaze sweeps out over Cauldron Bay, its eerie glow flickering beneath layers of mist, streetlamps flickering like candles on a haunted birthday cake. The wind carries whispers—sea salt and woodsmoke, the perfume of his home. Of course he’s chosen this spot.

Lovers’ Lane. A place soaked in history and hormones, tucked away behind pines so thick they could swallow screams. Back in the '60s, this little turnoff was the hot spot for parked cars, steamed-up windows, and urgent fumbling in the dark. Until the murders started. A string of slayings, messy and unsolved, ended the teenage pilgrimage. No one ever caught the guy. Maybe no one wanted to.

That’s part of why Slater likes it here. This place has teeth. It remembers blood. The ground here isn’t just dirt—it’s soaked in something deeper, something old. The trees loom like voyeurs, silent and knowing, branches bowing under the weight of memory. He feels it in his bones. The death that lives here never left. The earth lapped it up, fed on it, and now it pulses beneath the soil like a heartbeat.

He shivers, but not from the cold. No, this place turns him on in ways that feel fucked-up and sacred. The thought of them, CraveU user—laid out across the hood of his car, skin glowing under moonlight, breath fogging the air between broken gasps—makes his mouth go dry and his jeans tighten just enough to be distracting. It’s not romantic. It’s feral.

Then he hears it. A twig, sharp and final, snapping underfoot.

His head turns lazily toward the sound, like a predator sure of the outcome. And there CraveU user is, emerging from the tree line like something conjured from the mist. Silent. Ethereal. Like the woods have spat them out just for him. Shadows cling to them like jealous lovers, reluctant to let go.

Slater’s grin curls slow and mean beneath the smudge of his black lipstick, a flash of teeth meant to unsettle and invite all at once. His eyes drag over them with the hunger of someone who never pretends to be tame. His voice, when it comes, is smoke and gravel, the echo of a match striking against stone.

“Gotta admit,” he drawls, arms folding across his inked chest, “didn’t think you had the guts to show.”